


Succor

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [113]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, YCMAL 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “They can do whatever the fuck they want,” Jared snaps. “I’m not you, Bryce, if the Flames scratched you the entire city would be speculating about what the fuck got their star player scratched. They can do whatever they want to me, doesn’t matter if it makes sense, doesn’t matter if it’s just out of spite, and I can’t do shit, and they know it, and they’re making sureIknow it. This is just—”It’s a message. They can do whatever the fuck they want, they can make Jared sit out a game against his husband, they can make Jared sit out a game in front of his family, they can make Jared sit out a game in his hometown. They can do whatever the fuck they want, and they have.Message received.
Relationships: OMC/OMC
Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [113]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/849798
Comments: 20
Kudos: 284





	Succor

Jared shuts the front door behind himself, locks it with unsteady hands. Goes into the kitchen, gets a Gatorade, looks in his fridge to see what him and Julius can make for dinner, because like, not thinking about being fucking scratched for a minute is nice. Chicken, baby spinach, veggies. Good stuff he should use tonight because they won’t last through the road trip. The one he’ll only nominally be on at the start, because Deslauriers is a piece of shit.

Not thinking about it is going great.

Jared drinks his Gatorade as he looks up recipes, finds one that works with everything he has, saves it. Looks up his name on twitter. Nothing there, at least not yet. Probably won’t be announced until the afternoon of the game, maybe the morning if someone the media gets a scoop. There’s a tweet about his last game, the two pointer, talking about how great a fit he is on Julius’ line, how he’s starting to emerge. That’s nice. That’s a nice tweet.

Jared has to call Greg now, he guesses. His parents are probably both working, Bryce he needs to save for last, and Greg’s job is literally Jared. Among other players, obviously, but still. He should call Greg.

Greg doesn’t pick up, so Jared leaves him a message that it’s important and finishes his Gatorade, staring at the blank TV. 

He’s poured himself a glass of water — hydration’s important or whatever — is halfway through it when Greg calls him back.

“I’m a healthy scratch for next game,” Jared says. 

“But you’ve been playing well,” Greg says. Jared suspects that’s going to be the refrain, which is fair, because he has. 

“The game’s against the Flames,” Jared says. “They’re scratching me when we go to Calgary. Mulligan told me. Said it wasn’t about my play.”

Greg’s very quiet on the other end. Which is helpful, at first, because Jared kind of needs to rant about it, and he suspects with his dad and Bryce they’re going to be doing a lot of ranting of their own, so it’s nice to get the chance to do it uninterrupted. But then, when Jared’s reached the point of calling Deslauriers a raging pile of dicks and Greg still hasn’t said anything, it’s concerning. 

“Greg?” Jared asks. “You still there?”

“You know what this is, right?” Greg asks.

“Deslauriers being a fucking asshole?” Jared asks.

“Well,” Greg says. “Yes. But he’s targeting you professionally for your personal life.”

“I mean, I figured that out, yeah,” Jared says.

“Is this the only thing he’s done since you’ve gotten back to Edmonton?” Greg says. “There isn’t anything you didn’t tell me?”

“He’s been kind of the opposite of friendly, which I told you, but other than that, no,” Jared says.

“If the workplace is hostile…” Greg says. 

“It’s not,” Jared says. “Well, I didn’t think it was until now. And it’s not — the team’s fine, coaching staff’s fine.”

“The coaches and your teammates don’t know who you’re married to,” Greg says. “Or even that you’re gay. Do they?”

Jared chews his lip. “Halla does.”

“But other than him?” Greg asks.

“No,” Jared says.

“And Halla excepted, the ones who know are punishing you for it,” Greg says. “Jared, you don’t have to play for a front office that is personally targeting you. If you want — I can’t necessarily make anything happen, but if you want to request a trade, or I can contact the NHLPA and file a—”

“But I want to play for Edmonton,” Jared interrupts, realising it’s true as he says it. It’s close to home, to Bryce, he’s playing great with Julius, likes playing with him, likes hanging out with him, even though he’s a demanding shit. Likes most of his teammates, even if they don’t really hang out outside of team time. Likes Mulligan as his coach, for all he’s faintly terrified of him. He just — he doesn’t want to leave.

Greg sighs. “I know you do,” he says, like it isn’t news to him. It’s news to Jared, how much he wants to stay. “Keep me updated, okay? On anything. If he so even walks through a door you’re holding open without saying thank you, I want to know.”

“I don’t really plan on holding any doors open for him right now,” Jared says.

“I don’t blame you,” Greg says. 

*

After Jared gets off the phone with Greg he finishes his glass of water, tries to figure out if it’s too early to call his parents. His mom’s definitely still at work, but his dad could be free. 

_Are you on a job right now?_ Jared texts his dad. If he is he’ll wait, maybe call Bryce, though he’s worried the conversation with Bryce is going to make it hard to talk to anyone else. With Greg, his parents, it’s Deslauriers versus Jared, unfair as shit. With Bryce, it’s going to be Deslauriers versus Jared, unfair as shit, because Jared married him. He’s going to take it as personally as Jared is taking it, because it’s just as personal for him.

His dad calls him back within a minute. “On my way to one,” his dad says, with faint distance like he’s driving, using the hands-free. “What’s up, bud? Is Julius coming for dinner? Obviously he’s welcome, I just need to know so I know how much food to make, you guys pack it away.”

Jared debates like, telling him to pull over but that’s probably dramatic and it’d distract him more than the news itself. 

“Give me a call back when you’re not driving?” Jared asks. “Unless you’re tight for time.”

“Nah, was planning on picking up a couple things for dinner on the way,” his dad says. “I’ll call you when I get to Safeway?”

“Sure,” Jared says, and drinks the rest of the water while he waits, fills himself another glass.

“What do you feel like eating?” his dad says when he picks up. 

“Um,” Jared says. “I don’t — I’m not going to be playing.”

“Are you hurt?” his dad asks, voice immediately sharp. “I didn’t see anything — did you get hurt? How bad is it?”

“I’m fine,” Jared says. “I’m healthy. I got scratched for the game against Calgary.”

Jared is not surprised by the tirade he gets in response. After an appreciated breakdown of how fucking good he thinks Jared’s been — Jared is aware he’s been good, but it’s nice to get confirmation, and his dad never sugarcoated things when he played badly, was never of those ‘you did your best and that’s what matters’ parents, so he knows he means it — when Jared tells him what Mulligan told him, he full on loses it. Hopefully in his car and not the middle of Safeway.

“You’re not in the produce aisle or something right now, are you?” Jared asks when his dad has to take a breath.

“I’m in my car,” his dad says, which is a relief, Jared guesses. “Fuck, I’m running late.”

“Sorry,” Jared says.

“Don’t be sorry,” his dad says. “Deslauriers should be fucking sorry. If I got him in a room he’d be—”

Jared bites down a smile, what feels like his first real one of the day. “Go to work, dad.”

“Okay,” his dad says. “Call me if you need anything, bud.”

“Thanks,” Jared says.

His mom’s definitely still working when he lets his dad go, Jared thinks it’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll get voicemail if he calls her, his dad already on the phone with her. So time to call Bryce now, then. He gets another Gatorade first, gives himself a bit of time to brace himself, because he knows Bryce is going to be — a lot.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bryce explodes when Jared tells him. “You’ve got three points in your last two games!”

“I know,” Jared says.

“Your line’s the best line they have right now!” Bryce says.

“I know, Bryce,” Jared says.

“What the fuck are they even thinking?” Bryce says. 

“I’m playing you,” Jared says. “That’s what they’re thinking.”

Bryce is quiet for a moment. “You think that’s why?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Jared says. 

“But you’ve played me before,” Bryce says. “You’ve never had any problems playing me. You played me last month!”

He didn’t, though. Bryce wasn’t on the ice for either of the exhibition games, including the one Jared played in. Jared wonders now if he’d have been in the line-up if Bryce had been playing.

“It’s not about my play,” Jared says. “They’re not scratching me because I’m not playing well, Mulligan said that. They’re scratching me as like, a lesson.”

“Of _what_?” Bryce asks. Jared can practically hear Bryce pacing. “I’m calling Summers,” he says

“What’s Summers going to do?” Jared asks. “He isn’t even my agent.”

“I don’t know, I just —” Bryce says. “They can’t _do_ this.”

“They can do whatever they want,” Jared says. 

“How are you not pissed off right now?” Bryce asks.

“I am,” Jared says.

“Why aren’t you fucking yelling?” Bryce asks. “I don’t understand how you can be this calm—”

“I’m not calm,” Jared says. “But if I start yelling I’m not going to stop until I yell at Deslauriers and I kind of want a fucking job here at the end of the day.”

“They can’t—” Bryce says.

“They can do whatever the fuck they want,” Jared snaps. “I’m not you, Bryce, if the Flames scratched you the entire city would be speculating about what the fuck got their star player scratched. They can do whatever they want to me, doesn’t matter if it makes sense, doesn’t matter if it’s just out of spite, and I can’t do shit, and they know it, and they’re making sure _I_ know it. This is just—”

It’s a message. They can do whatever the fuck they want, they can make Jared sit out a game against his husband, they can make Jared sit out a game in front of his family, they can make Jared sit out a game in his hometown. They can do whatever the fuck they want, and they have. 

Message received. 

“This is fucking stupid,” Bryce says.

“Yeah,” Jared says.

“This is _fucking_ stupid,” Bryce repeats.

“Yeah,” Jared echoes. “Yeah, I know.”

*

His mom calls not long after he gets off the phone with Bryce, so Jared guesses the gossip’s gone around. Or like, his dad talked to his wife about their son, which isn’t so much gossiping as parenting. He’s bitter today. He’s not proud of it, but how else is he supposed to feel about this?

“Hi,” Jared says. “Dad talk to you?” 

“It was more yelling,” his mom says. 

“Sounds like dad,” Jared says.

“I’m so sorry, Jared,” she says. “What happened?”

“Dad didn’t tell you?” Jared says.

“Like I said, it was mostly yelling,” she says, and Jared manages a laugh. “Tell me?”

Jared does. He’s honestly getting pretty tired of telling it, is going to be exhausted by the time he has to tell Julius. At least Julius knows Deslauriers, though Deslauriers probably like, adores him, treats him like gold. Spun glass. Definitely not the shit Jared deals with.

No more bitterness, Matheson.

“And it was fine before that?” she asks when he’s done. “There isn’t something you didn’t tell us when you met with him the other times?”

“I told you what our meetings had been like,” Jared says. 

“Tell me again?” she says.

“Like, we didn’t talk about Bryce at all, and he was kind of giving off ‘I hate that you’re married to Bryce Marcus, but you play well for us so we’re going to pretend you aren’t’ vibes and I was as polite as I could be,” Jared says.

“What does polite mean?” his mom asks.

“It means polite, mom,” Jared says.

“Yes, but,” she says. “ _Polite_ polite or you polite?”

“I’m polite,” Jared says. “Are you saying I’m not polite?”

“You are,” she says. “But—”

“What are you even trying to say right now?” Jared asks.

“I’m asking if you were defensive,” she says.

“Obviously I was defensive, he was low-key acting like I killed babies instead of just marrying the guy I love,” Jared says.

“But were you _rude_?” she asks.

“How do you get to rude from polite?” Jared asks.

“Because some people can be polite in rude ways,” his mom says. 

“I can’t believe you’re on his side right now,” Jared says.

“I’m on your side,” his mom says. “I’m always on your side. But I know you, Jared, as much as you like to think you’re unknowable, so I’m asking you, right now — when you’ve been meeting with Deslauriers, have you been rude?”

“Well, apparently polite’s rude now, so probably,” Jared says.

“Defensive,” she says. “Combative. Distant. Unwilling to listen.”

“Mom, what the hell,” Jared says.

“So yes,” she says.

“Why the fuck are you defending him?” Jared says. 

He can practically hear his dad snapping ‘Jared, language’, the way he only does if Jared dares to swear in front of his mom or Erin — he doesn’t give a shit if it’s the two of them going over a game — but then, he thinks if his dad was hearing this he’d be way more pissed at her for taking Deslauriers’ side than he’d be at Jared for swearing.

“I’m not,” she says. “In any other industry your front office would be opening themselves up to a lawsuit with this, because this is textbook retaliatory practice. I’m _furious_ for you. But Jared, you need to pay attention to how you come off. You’re not Bryce, you can’t antagonise your management.”

Jared doesn’t know if she means that he’s not as good as Bryce, which is accurate, or that she’s implying Bryce has antagonised Flames management, which is — also accurate, but either way he’s pissed.

“Sorry,” Jared says. “I’m so _terribly_ sorry my marriage has been mildly inconvenient for my management, of _course_ they’re right to scratch me, because otherwise how else could I learn—”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about, Jared,” she interrupts. “You’re still young, and I don’t think you realise—”

He hangs up. He’s young, so obviously he can’t realise — whatever the fuck she was going to say.

*

Jared has another very large glass of water. At this rate he’s closer to drowning than hydrating, but honestly, he’s not sure what else to do. He starts grabbing stuff out of the fridge. He typically holds off on starting dinner until Julius comes over, makes Julius be his sous chef, because if he wants Jared to feed him, he has to earn it, but gets started on it alone because meal prepping is better than obsessively refreshing twitter to see if it’s been announced he was a scratch — still no, and still makes no sense for it to be out — or staring at the blank TV some more. 

He chops the vegetables, assembles the salad. He keeps checking twitter — nothing. He responds to texts from Chaz, annoyed to hear he got scratched, clearly news direct from Bryce, then one a few minutes later from Ashley. He bitches at Raf, who sends a nice sympathetic message back, and then gets another nice sympathetic message from Grace, who must’ve got the news either from Ash or Raf.

He drinks another glass of water. 

Bryce calls him again, still upset, and Jared talks to him, finds himself being the calm one, because that’s how things work for them. Elaine sends him a nice email. His dad doesn’t call to yell at him for hanging up on his mom — that has to be higher on the list of ‘don’t do that to your mom’ than swearing — so that’s good. Jared sends a text apologising to her, even though he’s still pissed, because he was raised better. By her, specifically, since his dad can hold grudges with the best of them. She texts back that she understands and she’ll call him tomorrow when they’ve both cooled off. So that’s like. Whatever.

When dinner’s ready, Jared sends Julius a picture of it along with a ‘chop chop it’s getting cold’, and Julius is knocking on his door approximately ninety seconds later.

“You want a beer?” Jared asks.

Julius squints at him. “You have beer?” he asks.

“For when Bryce comes up, mostly,” Jared says.

“You have been hiding beer from me?” Julius asks.

Jared rolls his eyes. “Do you want a beer or not?” he asks.

“Yes,” Julius says, and follows Jared to the kitchen, watching intently as Jared opens his fridge, clearly trying to figure out where the beer stash is. It isn’t even hidden, it’s just a six-pack tucked away at the bottom, behind the Gatorade, because it’s not like Jared’s going to drink it, and him and Julius tend not to drink unless they’re out, often not even then, unlike Bryce, who’ll have a beer with dinner if he’s in the mood. As long as he’s no longer getting plastered on team outings — and he isn’t, thank fuck — Jared’s cool with it.

Tonight, however, Jared is very in the mood for a drink over dinner. It’s early for dinner, for them, but it feels late in Jared’s brain. Too much phone. Too much water. Too much fucking bullshit.

“Molson,” Julius says with disdain.

“Bryce likes Molson, take it or leave it,” Jared says.

Julius takes it, helps Jared portion the food out, carrying it to the table, which Jared guesses is the least he can do considering he didn’t help make it. Jared would make him do the dishes after, but he’s got a dishwasher.

“You’re loading the dishwasher after,” Jared calls out of the kitchen, and Julius doesn’t protest.

“Why beer?” Julius says when Jared sits down at the table, glass of wine in hand. He doesn’t have any club soda in the fridge, and it feels like a full glass of wine day anyway. “And dinner?”

“I make you dinner all the time,” Jared says.

“You make me help,” Julius says, which is a fair point.

“I’m not playing against Calgary,” Jared says.

Julius frowns, puts down the fork he just picked up. “Injury?” he asks.

“No,” Jared says. “I got scratched.”

Julius has the same protest as everyone else, that he’s playing well, and Jared still appreciates it, maybe extra from Julius, who’s protesting like he’s annoyed his line is getting worse. Not that Greg, his dad, Bryce didn’t mean it about Jared’s play, not that they wouldn’t know what good play looks like either, not just in general, but good play for Jared in particular. But with Julius it’s less ‘why are they scratching you, then?’ and more ‘how dare they take my linemate away? You being scratched personally inconveniences me and I am not here for it’. 

“I could—” Julius says.

“Don’t,” Jared says, before he finishes whatever he was about to offer. Jared’s pretty sure the best thing for him, for this stupid fucking situation, is to grit his teeth and smile and bear it, that Julius protesting, or talking to Deslauriers, anything like that, would just set Deslauriers against him more.

“Okay,” Julius says, finally picks his fork back up. Their food’s probably gone cold. 

Jared tries a bite. Lukewarm. Great. 

“It’s good,” Julius says after a minute. It’s not bad. Probably would be better hot, though. And if Jared wasn’t mad at like, everything. “Are you sure—”

“Yeah,” Jared says. “It’s like — I need to take this, you know? This is him kind of like, showing me he can do whatever he wants to me and I just have to suck it up and deal with it. So I’ve got to suck it up and deal with it, or it’s just going to escalate, you know?”

“No,” Julius says, then, “That sounds stupid.”

“It is stupid,” Jared says. “But it’s like, bully tactics, or office politics or whatever, so. Sucking it up and dealing with it, hoping he’ll drop it if I do.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Julius says.

“I shouldn’t,” Jared agrees. “But I will, so.”

“Stupid,” Julius mutters again, and Jared can do nothing but agree.


End file.
